Flash began as a vector drawing program
similar to Adobe Illustrator and Freehand. Vector art (also known
as "outline-fill") is computer graphics defined by lines
instead of pixels. Since lines can be described as mathematical
formulas, vector art can be very small in file size.
Today, Flash is a complete multimedia development environment
with its own "action script" programming language. Macromedia
claims 500,000 developers and over 325 million Web users of the
Flash Player, making the Flash plug-in the most widely distributed
piece of software on the Internet.
Creating Flash animation involves the process of "tweening" (short
for "in between" frames). This process allows the animator
to design two (or more) "key" frames and then lets Flash
draw all the "in between" frames. This very powerful
and efficient way of animating allows one to create complex motion
with very little effort.
Benefits of using Flash to create animation include:
relatively small file sizes (vector vs. pixels)
scalable art (Flash files can be blown up to any
size without loss of resolution)
ability to embed fonts (can use any font on a Flash
web page)
complex interactivity (can create entire web sites
in Flash)
multimedia support (can embed video and sound)
can export to Quicktime (can be used for television,
movies)
Procedure
Overview: Convert art to symbols, create
keyframes and tweens for animation. Add a mask to hide art. Test,
publish to server.
